Tag Archives: david lebovitz

Its time to say au revoir, I’m of to France, spending a week in the city of lights, old gay Paree. Yes im finally getting out of here for a bit of relaxation and more importantly food, specifically pastries. Im spending a week in Paris and its my plan to visit and sample as many patisseries as my stomach will humanly deem possible. By the time I come back I expect I will have put on countless pounds but I dont care, I plan to enjoy this trip to its fullest. I will hopefully have a post or two popping up whilst im away, if I ever get round to writing them, but I thought I would leave you with a little French treat, the Madeleine. I have no Proustian (pretty sure thats not a word) connection to them, in fact before I made these I have never even tried one. I know its probably cliched but these would be perfect served with tea as they are not too sweet and just the right size, and if you find yourself eating more than one you can console yourself by pretending there small stature means the calories dont count. Continue reading →

Every Christmas we end up with leftover Christmas pudding which is something I actually don’t like as I find it too heavy and rich. Last year I turned the leftover pudding into a muffin/cupcake creation from Rachel Allen and they went down very well. This year though I wanted to see if I could incorporate it into Ice Cream. I decided to match the pudding with a cinnamon ice cream but to make it more festive I reduced the cinnamon and replaced it with fresh nutmeg. Thankfully it worked a treat, the cinnamon ice cream alone would have been just fine on its own, so feel free to omit it if you prefer, but I found the combination a really great alternative festive dessert and would be a welcome change to the normal tradition of Christmas pudding. Im guessing this would also be great with mincemeat if you have jars of that left as well. Continue reading →

Coconut haters may want to turn away and come back next week because this week is going to an ode to one of my favourite ingredients, coconut. Simply put I love the stuff, but often stay away from using it because i’m always worried that what I end up making will just sit there unloved and uneaten. So I decided to make some coconut ice cream because it obviously lasts very well and since you steep the coconut, and then discard it, you remove many peoples biggest complaint: the texture. This ice cream comes again from, where else, David Lebovitz’s amazing book “The Perfect Scoop” which if I have not convinced you already is a really great buy. This Ice Cream was seriously good, the flavour well balanced, not overpowering but not too delicate either. The texture was the best yet, the rum kept it soft enough to scoop and was slightly dense and buttery. Thankfully I wasn’t the only one to agree so this did not last long, which was a shame because it would have been nice to have some more of this, I guess ill have to move to coconut hating household so I can keep this to myself. I currently have a ton of egg whites in the freezer so if anyone has some great recipes for left over whites I would love to hear them, my copy of Pierre Herme’s “Macaron” should arrive next week so that will take care of some but seriously I have loads! Continue reading →

Okay so let me start of by saying I didn’t set out to make a healthy fat free dessert it was more by chance. I was craving Ice cream and was wondering what to make when I noticed a post on thekitchn.com about making ice cream with just banana, no cream no eggs and no sugar, just simply frozen banana. Even though the post said it was successful I was still dubious, I mean how could “ice cream” with none of the traditional ingredients be similar in any way. You simply throw some bananas in the freezer and when they are frozen you peel them (a little tricky) and pop them in a food processor and blend until smooth and creamy, and believe me it is creamy. Continue reading →

Okay i’m just gonna say it…David Lebovitz is a genius, some sort of dessert prodigy. Ive been on a bit of an ice cream kick recently but I stupidly held out for a couple of months before making this most amazing flavour. This is actually the whole reason I bought the ice cream maker. I read David’s site regularly and its excellent, funny and full of great recipes. When he posted his recipe for salted butter caramel ice cream I knew I had to make it, the only problem being that I didnt have an ice cream maker. Continue reading →

Do you ever see something online and just cant get it out of your head (no nothing like THAT!!). A couple of weeks ago David Lebovitz posted about his visit to the L’ecole du Grand Chocolate Valhrona and the new technique he learnt, how to caramelise white chocolate. Im one of those people that actually like white chocolate, I really like its creamy taste and so this idea seemed like heaven. Even more delicious sounding though was the idea he mentioned as an aside, fresh ginger ice cream with the chocolate swirled in. Sounds good doesn’t it. Well I couldnt wait any longer and as the weather was perfect this weekend I decided it was time to try it out. Continue reading →

Its funny but as I get older I seem to find more links from family in the past that involve food. I always knew my Uncles were Butchers (of sorts they sold mostly cooked meats) and that my Grandfather ran market stalls across lancashire selling meats as well as biscuits during the war, which were a luxury due to rationing. Recently though I found out my Great Grandfather was an ice cream man. I found this out after making my first ever batch of ice cream this past weekend. I had been waiting for my ice cream maker to arrive for what seemed like ages and when it did finally arrive last friday it went straight in the freezer and as soon as I could I whipped up a batch of Butterscotch Pecan from the amazing book by David Lebovitz – “The Perfect Scoop” which David had suggested in an interview on Amateurgourmet.com. Continue reading →